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I made it to the end of the A to Z blogging Challenge. I know, I know. Yay me. The end was a day late, but that wasn’t my fault. I blame DW and Three Finger Shot. Normally I would have written in the evening after the kids had gone to bed. That’s pretty much how the whole challenge went. Except DW had texted me on the afternoon of Z day to say that Three Finger Shot was playing in town from 6-9 that evening and had a big announcement to make. She also said that Nanny and Pop were coming down to watch the boys and get them to bed while we went out. DATE NIGHT!

Being Three Finger Shot groupies, we knew we wouldn’t miss it. Instead of writing we were at a concert. It was a small pub concert and a bunch of our friends were there. And it was on a Monday! We had guesses for the big announcement narrowed down to:

A) The singer’s wife was pregnant

B) A new album release date

C) Summer touring dates

D) They were moving to our town (or one nearby)

Turns out it was E) None of the above. Our town, located on the Strait of Canso (a strait being a body of water between two land masses and connecting two larger bodies of water) has a festival every summer called the Festival of the Strait. Appropriate, right? Anyway, part of the festival is a concert and Three Finger Shot’s announcement was that they are playing at the Festival again! They were a massive hit when they played there last year.

I ended my Z post with song I recorded on my phone from the pub concert on Z day. You should go have a listen if you haven’t yet.

So, you can clearly see, it wasn’t my fault. And it was totally worth it.

Hey diddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle
M jumped over the moon
The dog laughed to see such a sport
and X ran away with the spoon.

(that’s my explanation as to why there is no M or X)

So in conclusion, I only missed two letters, M and X while Z was a day late. I enjoyed the challenge as it gave me a goal. I work better when I know what I’m working toward. Also, it gives my creative juices a bit more chutzpah. We could all use an extra dose of creative chutzpah sometimes. In case you missed any of them, here they are in all their glory.

I’m a day late on this one. Think of it as the Christmas gift that was forgotten about, lost under the tree. Or the one that arrives late in the mail. Or the one you had to buy yourself.

Anyway…

Whether you call it zee or zed it is for the end. It is the end of the alphabet. The Omega. It’s over. This is the last post in this year’s A to Z Challenge. Like all good things, this too must end.

Z is for the end of the day. The bedtime routine is painful, but once the kidlets are tucked in for reading time it’s one of my favorite times of the day. It’s quiet. It’s just us. We’re doing something we all enjoy that doesn’t involve running, jumping, screaming, hiding, or screens. Books are our portal to other worlds, other lives, and other times. Crash is reading the third book of Chris Colfer’s Land of Stories. He’s really enjoying them, even if he says he’s at slow part and nothing’s happening. Bang is really into the Puppy Place books by Ellen Miles. Just like days end, so too do books.

Sometimes we read a book and it’s ending makes feel like our bestie just moved away. Opening the book was like a visit from a friend. Like the world’s longest status update, we want to know what our friends are doing. We never want to get to Z, we never want it to end. It does, though, so we move on and find new friends in new books. For me that book was The Book Theif by Markus Zusak. Liesel and Rudy became a part of my every day for a while.

Days end. Books end. Lives end. Concerts end no matter how many times you chant “one more song”. So we start over. A fresh start, so to speak. We pick up the pieces and we move on. A new day is full of opportunities. Let’s make the most of it and dance!

Once we have our own offspring to look after we realize we’re not as young as we used to be. Oh sure, we can keep up with the young’ns easy enough. But as the years past, so does our youthfulness. Our muscles need more and more time to recover after playing. We feel like we need more sleep. Hangovers last just a bit longer, too. You know you’re getting older when your aches and pains can predict the weather. Try as we may to hold on to those glory days, they will pass us by. Eventually our glory days fade into golden years. Right now, I’m somewhere in between.

But it’s our youth that keep us young. Those heathens of ours will need to be entertained at some point. For me, that means 100+ pitches while they practice batting. It means playing catcher while they practice pitching. It means jumping on the trampoline so they can get launched. It means that when I go for a run they will want to ride their bikes and I may have to give them a push up a hill. It means lacing up my skates and hitting the ice with them. Now that I’m over 40, my body doesn’t recover like it used to. But if it weren’t for the youths in this household I wouldn’t be nearly as active as I am.

WTF? Could you find a more annoying song? Seriously, DO NOT listen to Numnumnum (link to lyric video in case you wanted to know the words). WTF (*why*) he insists on playing it our Alexas is beyond me. I unplugged one of them so he couldn’t play it. What’s the most annoying song your kids make you listen to?

But this is Thursday and Thursdays are for questions. What, where, why, and when all begin with W. So let’s stop wasting time talking about the letter of the day and lets ask some questions.

1. Why are bees so important?

Crash: Because they pollinate the flowers and the flowers need to be pollinated to make more flowers and without flowers we couldn’t go to weddings.
Bang: Because they make nectar and honey for you

2. Where was Jesus born?

Crash: Jerusalem
Bang: In the stable

3. What is the largest mammal on Earth?

Crash: Elephant is the largest on land and largest anywhere is a blue whale
Bang: The dad grown-up black bear

4. Are there aliens somewhere in the universe?

Crash: Depends, right now we don’t know, but possibly.
Bang: No

5. If I gave you $20, what would you do with it?

Crash: Buy a $15 Google Play gift card and donate the rest to a charity.
Bang: Save it to buy a puppy

6. If you had your own museum, what would you put in it?

Crash: The history of video games.
Bang: It would be an animal museum – black bear bones, polar bear body, and an elephant skeleton in sections

7. If you had to buy yourself a gift that you couldn’t open for 5 years, what would you buy?

Crash: A car if I was old enough to drive, but I’m not. So I’d get the biggest TV I could
Bang: a baby bird in a box with holes for me to give it water and food

8. What would be something fun to fill a pool with to jump into?

Crash: A strawberry banana smoothie
Bang: corn starch water (to make nonnutonian fluid to walk on top of)

9. If you gave our family trophies, what would each of us get?

Crash: Me- for the best gamer, Bang- for being the most annoying, Dad- the best cooker and chore doer, Mom- for the best lover
Bang: Dad- bronze trophy for coming in 3rd in the car race, Mom- for coming in second in an ice cream eating race, Crash: For finishing his supper first, Me – for Gold, silver, and bronze for having the best questions in the world

10. Did you have any dreams last night?

Crash: As a matter of fact yes I did. There was a big Pokemon battle and I had Kyoger and the other guy had Groudon. Since one was fire type and one was water type, mine formed a big bubble and splashed it on Groudon. Then he was all wet, but it all evaporated off him then rained on him and evaporated and rained on him again, and so on. And it took all his energy away making the bubble evaporate.
Bang: No. I stayed awake all night.

So many words begin with vvacuum, valor, vanity…V shall be for vamonos.for kids that goes and goes goes.Vamonos, the kids are awakeVamonos, no time for a break.Let’s go let’s go let’s go!Life with kids is never slow…

Undivided. In it’s entirety. Whole. As parents it’s easy to understand why our children may not receive our undivided attention. Laundry. Cooking. Assembling trampolines (that what we did after school today). A phone call. We’re sitting on the toilet. However, when our children finally have our undivided attention, there’s no telling what might happen. Perhaps they’ll want to play a board game. Perhaps they’ll tell us what they did in school. Perhaps they’ll just want to tell us a story. Usually, they’ll have some piece of useless information they found out about whatever video game, or Pokemon they’re obsessing over. We’ll feign interest so they know that what they have to say is important to us no matter how mundane. When a kid hands you a toy phone you answer it. It’s the same with their stories. Sometimes the best thing we can give them is our time. After all, it’s the one thing that once we give we never get back.

Unconditional. Our children’s love comes with no strings attached. Our love for our children is nonnegotiable. From the time we find out we’re expecting to the first moment we hold them in our arms, our love grows exponentially.

Of course we’re going to have tough days, tough weeks. Perhaps some tough years, too. We don’t love them less. They are our children. Learning. Growing. There’s bound to be mistakes by child and parent alike. We pick each other up, dust each other off, apologize and move on. We continue to feed them, shelter them, love them. No matter how much we’d like to hang them from the clothesline for a few hours.

I would love to say Q is for quiet. It’s a rare occurrence around here. A lit match lasts longer the quiet in our house. Unless it’s after bedtime. Those 2 hours after the kids are asleep is Mommy and Daddy time. We’re not playing referee. We’re not cooking or cleaning. The kids think we always stay up late and drink wine when in fact we stay up a bit, watch adult shows and eat snacks.

But Q won’t be for quiet today. Just like last year for Q, it falls on a Thursday. Anyone familiar with this space knows that Thursday for Questions. These questions are from April 20th of last year. Lets see how their answers differ…

1. What’s your favorite thing to do in the summer?

Crash: Go to the beachBang: Use the sprinkler with all my friends!

2. What do sharks eat?

Crash: Fish, people sometimes if they think you are a seal, and sealsBang: Fish and krill and shark food

3. What animal would it be fun to be?

Crash: An eagleBang: A mouse

4. Why would it be fun to be that animal?

Crash: a) because eagles are cool and b) because you can you fly with your wingsBang: because you get to dig in people’s walls and live in there

5. What would you like to learn more about?

Crash: How to drawBang: Tigers

6. What’s the best thing about you?

Crash: I make friends easilyBang: That I know stuff past grade 1

7. What’s the best thing about Dad?

Crash: He’s bald and you do most of the chores around the houseBang: Not much, just one thing. You let me play on your phone because I know your password to play Candy Crush

8. What’s the best thing about Mom?

Crash: She’s losing weight and volunteers for a lot of stuffBang: She snuggles me

It’s the only thing it can be for when you have anything from a toddler to a tween and even beyond.

Bad tempered.

If that doesn’t describe terrible twos, threenagers, fournados, tweens, and teens and every other label and nickname we’ve given our offspring. What is up with that temper? Growing up I was so mellow and even tempered. I was easy to please. My offspring?

They’re ornery.

One of these days I’m going to jot down every time they’re ornery. What are they cranking about now? Time to turn the electronics off. Time for bed. Time for school. Time to clean. They’re hungry. Can’t find the right lego piece. The bike ride sucks because there’s an uphill. A brother is taking too long pooping. This was just this week and it’s only Tuesday.

We all know our wee ones can become ornery over the most mundane things. Wrong color sippy cup, not enough chocolate chips in the pancake, can’t find the socks they want, to name a few. Teens might lose it if there is no wifi, no charger, or “too much” homework. I’m sure there are others which I’ll learn about later. Feel free to warn me now what I should look out for later.

If you’re feeling ornery, just look up some parenting memes. You’ll find that you’re not alone. Others understand and they’ve created some truthfully, hilarious stuff. Funnier than a toddler trying to explain why there’s a slice of cheese in the DVD player…

It is for so many things. Especially things that deal with kids and parenting.

Normal. What the hell is that, anyway? Once you have kids, the definition of normal is significantly changed. Before having kids and we wanted to go out to eat, normally we would just go out to eat wherever we wanted. Now? Now, we fight with kids who can’t find their other shoe, herd them to the vehicle and attempt to have a civilized meal at a restaurant that has food we know our heathens will eat. Before having kids we normally got to sleep all night. After, normal became waking every 2 hours (at best) for feedings and changings, waking for a sick kid, or one who was scared of the monster under the bed, or was thirsty. Or just wanted to ask what you were doing.

Nosy much? Who are you talking to on the phone? Who are texting? Whatcha eating? Where are you going? Why are you sitting on the toilet? Maybe it’s curiosity. They ask a million other questions, too. It’s probably not curiosity. They’re just nosy. All up in my business. Do your kids watch you on your phone from over your shoulder? That my cue to shut it off until they’re either preoccupied entertaining themselves or in bed asleep.

Night night love you. The last words we hear before enjoy a couple hours of blissful quiet while we watch Mom and Dad shows. No Teen Titans Go. No Beyblade Burst cartoons. No Pokemon anime. Just The Voice, The Good Doctor, This Is Us, Grey’s Anatomy, Station 19, Blindspot. We get to eat food without having to share it.

Noisy much? Oh the noises we hear. Crash! Bang! Boom! Clunk thunk kachunk. Beeps and boops. Thunderfeet. Temper tantrums. Screams, whining, questions. Laughter. We’re bombarded with noise all day. As they age, though, they often quiet down (most of the time) as their noise making faces become more and more engrossed in electronics. There will come a day when we realize our life is unusually quiet. So for now, all we need to do is learn to breathe, embrace the chaos, and enjoy the noise that is our life. This is what normal is now.